


Supersymmetry

by greenbucket



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-01 17:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11491029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: Gus survives Gruhuken, in a manner of speaking.





	Supersymmetry

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: discussions of death + grief + PTSD (ongoing) and amputation + drowning (occasional). But also lots of hand holding and hugging!
> 
> Unbeta'd and possibly under-researched, let me know if anything's wrong.

Jack knows he’s been drifting in and out of consciousness for some time now, aware of hands guiding him to water and Isaak heavy and warm by his side in only a scattered way before he’s sinking back into the burning cabin, the crunch of glass underfoot and the rage pressing ever closer. It’s a nauseating cycle; from nightmare to terrified wakefulness merging into _the_ _boat, did someone get Gus back onto the boat_ and then to exhaustedly slipping back into the nightmares once more.

This time he wakes up gasping, the light rocking with the motion of the ship. It’s been on since Jack first woke up in darkness and likely scared the life out of whoever was attending him, unable to speak past the terror and trying to struggle out of the bunk even when his limbs – his foot – wouldn’t co-operate.

Jack isn’t sure how long ago that was. He’s woken and slept what feels like for eternity.

So, it seems reasonable that when he opens his eyes he sees Gus, dishevelled and pale and wide-eyed in the swaying light of the cabin. Everything is a little confusing right now but Gus is there, which is soothing and a pleasant alternative to the crushing anxiety over his wellbeing and whereabouts.

Jack thinks he says, “They got you back onto the boat. Gus. You’re here,” but there’s a possibility it comes out a little less coherent than that. It’s still hard to stay awake, the exhaustion warring with the fierce relief of _Gus is here, he’s alive_.

“Jack?” Gus’ voice is strange, tight with some emotion not fully tamped down. He’s standing very still despite the rocking.

“I’m OK,” Jack reassures him. “You’re OK, aren’t you?” He tries to reach out a hand to Gus to make sure for himself but he’s too far and all Jack manages is a weak movement across the covers, disturbing Isaak a little in his sleep.

Gus moves a little closer, face still deathly pale but some of his upbeat veneer back in place. He doesn’t reach back.

“Everything is all right,” he says. “Don’t you worry about a thing, old man. Rest.”

Jack does. When he next wakes up, a scream caught in his throat, Gus is gone.

 

* * *

 

Later, when he’s learnt the truth, Jack can only brush it off as a dream, some addled part of his mind creating an image of Gus to comfort him and ignore the reality he must have already known, to soothe him of some of the savage guilt. The reality that they didn’t pull Gus out of the water, that they haven’t even been able to find his body but there’s no chance that he made it out alive. That Gus is dead and it’s almost entirely Jack’s fault, and if not wholly then at least weighted toward him between him and Algie (who should never have allowed Gus to travel, what was he thinking? What was he _thinking?_ ). He’s the one that couldn’t hack it for just a little longer.

He doesn’t remember who told him the truth, just remembers feeling the immediate urge to vomit and a moment later gasping over someone’s anticipatory bucket, Eriksson’s rough hand on his back and the smell of sick mixing terribly with the stink of seal blubber. The bucket had been taken away and Jack left alone again, Isaak whining as he stuck anxiously close to Jack’s bed.

That had been a few days ago.

He can barely stand with his foot in the state it is – _Jack – your_ feet _! Where are you boots? Oh, Jack!_ – and he can’t face the rest of the crew, especially Algie, so mostly he stays in his room as they sail onward home. The sight and smell of the sea all around them the one time he had ventured slowly to the deck had made him dizzy and since then he’s had most of his meals brought to him, baths forgone even as he desperately needs one, Isaak by his side regardless.

Jack wishes he could sleep more like he used to but now it’s harder. The exhausted shock has worn off and the fear of the nightmares keeps him up, not to mention the guilt and grief that’s heavy on his chest. He thinks maybe if he could cry there might be some release but nothing comes, stuck in his throat by the choking mix of fear and guilt and grief and anger and shame and sadness.

He spends a fair amount of his time looking at where Gus had been standing, or rather where his mind had hallucinated him to be. It had felt real. Gus had looked real, weight loss from the surgery and hair longer than Jack remembered. He’d told Jack it was all all right, and it had felt real.

 

* * *

 

Jack is sure he must have finally lost his nerve when he’s helped back into his room by one of the crew after dinner and Gus is standing by the bed. He looks the same as before, though a little calmer perhaps. Jack nearly falls over despite the crewman’s support, Isaak dithering around his legs in response to his horror. The man doesn’t react to Gus at all, and that’s all the confirmation Jack needs.

“Fuck,” Jack says. “Oh, hell. Jesus Christ.” Then, to the poor crewman: “I’m sorry, you can go, I’m quite all right. Thanks.”

The room is as quiet as it gets once the door shuts, the low rumble of the engine and the click of Isaak’s paws and the sound of a ship at work all around still. Gus doesn’t speak. The calm is fading into awkwardness in his face, like he’s unsure how to proceed.

It looks so real. Jack can feel his throat grow tight just to see him again so clearly, not the blur of remembering but as if he’s really there.

“You’re not real,” Jack tells his imaginary Gus. “I know you drowned and they didn’t find your body.”

“I do remember, Jack,” says imaginary Gus.

“You can’t remember it because Gus is dead and you’re not real.”

Imaginary Gus says, “Do you remember when we watched the Northern Lights? And I asked you about the,” – and here his mouth twists into something like a smile – “’ _unseen forces’_?”

Jack remembers. The lights so high above them, intimidating and uncaring, and Gus embarrassed as he tried to broach the subject of the creature that would lead to his death. Jack flattered that Gus believed he could be a real scientist someday. He swallows hard. “I remember, and so do you because you’re just something I’m making up.”

“I’m not. Jack, listen: I haven’t any idea how but I really am here. I don’t want to suggest that – well.” He looks embarrassed. “To be truthful with you, the only answer I can think of is that I may have come back as some kind of ghost.”

Jack blinks. Gus looks like he wishes he wasn’t standing in the middle of the room and maybe like he wishes he hadn’t spoken at all. The quiet stretches.

Gus. A ghost. Like whatever haunted Gruhuken? Jack doesn’t feel any of the innate terror with him, none of the waves upon waves of malevolence. Gus looks himself; perhaps a little bedraggled but none of the rotting leather and bloated skin. Gus. A ghost, not a construction of Jack’s struggling nerves. Something else entirely, the product of something as distant and unknown as the Northern Lights.

“Jack?” Gus sounds unsure.

Jack stares at him a moment longer. The paleness, the steadiness on a boat that Gus had never managed in life. The fact Jack’s holding a conversation with the man he’d seen dragged overboard and hadn’t been able to save. Ghosts. Could that be real? Did it matter, since either way Jack’s mind is seeing some kind of being? Once he may have laughed the idea of ghosts off as impossible but after Gruhuken, how could he be sure? Whatever haunted there was – _is,_ Jack corrects himself with a shudder – certainly both dead and alive. Why not Gus too? Though if Gus is a ghost, how does Jack know Gus doesn’t harbour the same need for revenge? He certainly seems to look like Gus and to act like Gus but while part of Jack aches to reach out to him, the other shies away in fear.

But it’s Gus. Gus, the Honourable Augustus Balfour, who seems to have come back as a _ghost_.

Jack starts to laugh and once he starts he can’t stop, laughing until tears are pouring down his cheeks and his stomach aches and his lungs burn. Isaak yips, poking his nose into Jack’s face and scrabbling against his knees with interest.

Gus looks torn between concern and embarrassment. “Jack. Jack, please. What are you –? Are you –?” He gives a frustrated huff, “Why are you laughing?”

Jack gasps to catch his breath. “A _ghost_ ,” he gets out before he’s laughing again, hysteria making him lightheaded.

“Oh, ha ha. Very funny to the physicist, I’m sure,” Gus says, smiling just a little.

Eventually, Jack’s laughter dies down. He hurts all over. “Can you sit?” he asks, wiping his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Gus admits. “I’m rather new to this.”

He moves to the bed, Isaak dutifully moving out the way, and carefully sits, sinking into the mattress slightly but not all the way through to the floor. He looks relieved and a little intrigued, like he’s about to get out his notes and begin a new section: Augustus Balfour, early adjustment to semi-corporality. Without thinking, Jack reaches out and places his hand on top of Gus’. It sinks very slightly through Gus’ hand then stops, an unsettling sensation but more encouraging than if Jack couldn’t really touch Gus at all. His hand where it envelopes Jack’s is very cold. All the guilt pours back with a vengeance.

“I am _so_ sorry, Gus,” Jack says before the guilt overwhelms him. “This is all utterly my fault, I understand if you feel you can never forgive me. I- I dare say I even understand if you hate me.” He stares at his hand over Gus’ as he struggles for more words, a lump rising in his throat and cutting off his voice. Accepting the ongoing existence of ghosts, especially in the form of Gus, was funny but it also meant that Gus was very definitely still dead.

“Jack, old man, what is this?”

“I think about it a hundred times a day, every day. If I hadn’t been so stupid as to insist we carry on the expedition none of this would have happened and I am so wretchedly sorry, Gus, I don’t think I could ever–”

“Stop this,” says Gus and he flips his hand to squeeze Jack’s firmly. “Nonsense, Jack. You must realise that I don’t blame you in the slightest. Neither of us wanted the expedition to go to pieces and Heaven knows I couldn’t have stuck it out as long as you did there alone. This isn’t really how I hoped it would all turn out, this whole dying business and your poor foot, but that’s the lot we’ve been given.”

“How can you be so calm about it?” _You’re dead_ , Jack doesn’t say. _Don’t you realise you’re dead?_

Gus pauses as if to gather his thoughts. “Well, I confess I was in a bit of a funk about it all at first. When I woke up in the snow I hadn’t any idea what was going on and I was just worried about what had happened to you and to the others, I scarcely realised what had happened to me until I appeared here.”

“You were at Gruhuken?” Jack asks, horrified. “Were you alone? Was it there with you?”

Gus shakes his head. “No, no, I was quite alone. Though I suppose even if I wasn’t, I can hardly die again, can I?”

_How do you know?_ Jack doesn’t ask. The unknowns of Gus’ situation feel overwhelming in that moment; not an adventure or discovery, an endless fog of questions and unsure answers.

“After I appeared here, I suppose it took too much from me and I was back in Gruhuken again,” Gus continues after a moment. “I can’t say why for sure, perhaps I’ll always be drawn back there. It’s where my body is after all.” He flinches a little discussing his own body, looking away from Jack and clenching his jaw hard. “It’s a working theory.”

Jack’s hand is going numb in Gus’ and he tries not to let the cold pull him back to Gruhuken, the memory of staggering out the cabin bare foot flashing through his mind for a moment before he pushes it away again. It’s Gus, who’s not anything to be frightened of and needs comfort and reassurance, not Jack panicking. “How long will you be able to stay this time?” he asks.

“I should think a bit longer. When I wasn’t, well, taking some time _accepting_ how things are to be from now on, I was testing what I can do. I feel steadier with it all as time passes and currently we aren’t so far from Gruhuken that the draw is a strain.” Gus gains some strength in his voice as he speaks, ending like an order to the universe: laws of the afterlife don’t apply to Balfours, thank you very much.

“Have you told Algie?”

Gus voice loses the command, and he says, “Algie can’t see me.” A pause.  “In fact, so far it’s only you. I have a couple of working theories as to why that may be.”

“Oh.”

Jack doesn’t know what to say. Does he ask for the theories? Gus is looking determinedly at the wall which Jack doesn’t take as an invite to ask further. He seems more distant than he had a moment ago explaining how he had appeared as a consciousness back from the dead in the snow, an experience Jack can hardly comprehend.

Jack feels unsteady and his pulse is racing with all the talk of Gruhuken, with the still settling shock. A ghost. For Gus to survive drowning only to be entirely unseen by every single person but one seems unbearably unfair. Jack cannot think of a single thing to say in comfort. Instead, he allows for some vulnerability in turn: “I hoped staying at Gruhuken would impress you.”

Gus comes back to the present, warm even as the arm that sinks around Jack’s shoulder, pulling him closer, is cold. “Oh, Jack. You must know you didn’t need to do all that to impress me.”

And, finally, the real tears come.

 

* * *

 

When they first arrive back in England, Gus vanishes for four days straight.

He had been there with Jack, still invisible to others but keeping nearby as Algie helped Jack along, and then they had stepped off the boat and he was gone.

Jack doesn’t have time to fully panic about it as he already arranged to visit Gus’ parents with Algie once they got back, and the anxiety manifests in a new nightmare to keep him up at night instead: Gus, lost and alone, forever wondering the shores of Gruhuken with rage slowly consuming him. Rationally, Jack knows England is quite some way away  and Gus just needs time to adjust to being so far from Gruhuken if his theory is true but all the unknowns descend like a fog again. What if it really was just Jack’s imagination? What if Gus is forever stuck in the boundaries of Gruhuken and its waters? Jack can’t ever go back.

Combined with his fear over how Gus’ parents will react to meeting the reason their only son is dead, it means that even before he’s packed in with Algie for the journey Jack feels worn thin and like he hasn’t slept in weeks. To make matters worse, Isaak has been placed in quarantine. Jack misses him terribly.

Algie pauses his silence-filling chatter to look Jack once over and his eyebrows turn worried. He’s dark under the eyes with exhaustion and grief. Gus had asked not to tell him about his being a ghost, not until Algie would actually be able to see him. Jack feels guilty about it now he’s able to see the toll on Algie with little else but countryside to occupy him for the next while.

“Are you positive you’re all right to do this?” he asks Jack as they set off.

Jack nods, restrains himself from giving a snappy response because Algie has been kinder than Jack thought possible. “I’ll feel better once I apologise.”

Algie’s eyebrows turn deeper. “Jack–” He sighs. “They’re a good sort, you know.”

Jack doesn’t reply. He knows Algie means well but with Gus gone again, the reality that he’s actually dead is unavoidable. And Jack needs to let his parents know that he’s sorry, to let them know his role in Gus’ death and how he’ll never forgive himself for it. Algie plans on asking for advice on insurance, too, since everything in the cabin was destroyed. The thought of any of it makes Jack want to sleep for a year until it’s all over.

It seems foolish now, but he’d thought that with Gus sort of OK, some of the fear and the weight would leave him for good. For those days travelling from Longyearbyen they almost had, at least while he was awake with Isaak and Gus and his small, safe room to distract him. Now with none of those things, nor the hustle and bustle of the city to fill the quiet as they travel, Jack feels overexposed and unsafe. He can’t stop thinking about Gruhuken and the trappers and the look on Gus’ face before he fell in the water. It spins around and around in his head, an endless horrifying loop.

Jack closes his eyes and lets the journey ease him into quasi-sleep where neither the nightmares or the pressures of reality can reach him. Algie, for once, is quiet.

 

* * *

 

Gus returns the day before Jack and Algie are due to leave the Balfour’s. Jack is carefully packing up his clothes, folding them so that the wear and tear is folded inside just in case one of the many servants checks over his bags before they go. In some ways, it’s more embarrassing for them to see them than Mr and Mrs Balfour; to them, everyone poorer than them is roughly the same but if they servants see he knows they’ll _know_. He wishes he could stop caring.

He still feels tired as he always does these days but he has appreciated the stay in such a luxurious location. There’s no sound of the city around them, which Jack though might make him anxious but the sounds of birds tweeting and the occasional far-off farm animal is different enough from the creaking silence of Gruhuken that it’s almost peaceful.

“Jack?”

Jack turns, just in time to see Gus melt through the closed door. The sight of something so distinctly not human throws him for long enough that Gus’ smile turns down at the corners.

He says apologetically, “I’m sorry, I should have knocked. I didn’t think.”

While Jack agrees, truthfully he’s too relieved to see Gus back to care, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in days. _Finally, now that’s peaceful_. He says as much and Gus’ smile returns in full. His walk is still slightly unnervingly smooth, more a glide than a walk, but the hug is close and tight, if a little cold. Jack rests his head against Gus’ shoulder, not caring if it’s too intimate for two friends. If that’s what they are. Jack knows where he stands, but Gus… Jack chooses not to worry about it while Gus is here and safe, not trapped in Gruhuken or vanished forever into some other dimension and leaving Jack behind forever.

“I missed you,” he says into Gus’ shoulder. “Where did you go?”

“Back to Gruhuken,” Gus says, voice determinedly steady. “Stepping onto different land was harder than I had thought it would be. I had to wait there for a little while to regain my strength.”

Jack feels sick at the thought. “Oh, Gus.” Four days alone in Gruhuken was less time than the days he must have spent there between first appearing and returning to Jack the second time but it’s still too long.

Gus represses a shudder and squeezes extra tight before pulling back a little. He holds Jack by the shoulders as if to get a proper look at him. His eyes are slightly red but he sounds balanced enough when he speaks, “Tell me honestly now. How has it been with Algie and my parents?”

“They have all been kinder to me than I could ever deserve,” Jack says quickly, both to reassure and to confess. “They’ve helped Algie with the insurance, they pulled some strings to keep the press away and they found a specialist to help with my foot. And, well. They thanked me for trying to save you, made sure I understood it wasn’t my fault.”

When Gus’ parents had said that, Mrs Balfour’s hand firm on his shoulder and her husband nodding alongside her, Jack had thought he might embarrass himself frightfully by crying in front of them but thankfully managed to croak out his gratitude instead.

Gus looks pleased. “I should think so they told you that, seeing as it’s the truth.” His expression turns bittersweet, “I suppose we needn’t tell them about me. They’re rather devout Christians after all, and it would only upset them to know my situation.”

Jack searches Gus’ expression but can’t tell if it’s the chin-up façade making him so level-headed or if he truly feels it. “You’re certain?”

“Yes, quite certain. What kind of a son would I be if I took that closure from them?”

Jack doesn’t know if that’s right but all his family is dead, so he keeps quiet. 

“If we’re correct assuming there is a relation between time plus practice and the strength of my presence, eventually I should be able to be seen by some others. Most likely Algie and my sister, I’d imagine,” Gus continues and looks briefly his age with his uncertainty and longing.

Jack still doesn’t like to think about how lonely it must be for Gus, to have only one person in the world know he’s there. Sometimes he himself feels so lonely he could break in half.

Another part of him notes the people Gus suggested are those he’s closest with, and so if Jack can see him, does that mean–? Jack pushes the thought away, ashamed of himself for entertaining the idea when Gus is discussing his parents’ closure over his death and perhaps never being able to communicate with his best friend or sister again. More likely Jack can see Gus because they were friendly and Jack was the last to see him before he drowned.

“They’ll be able to see you soon,” he says with a lot more confidence than he feels. He almost reaches for Gus’ hand before he realises the implications as he asks, “Will you be staying?”, and he turns to carry on folding instead.

“For as long as I can,” says Gus and Jack doesn’t think he’s imagining the fondness there.

 

That night, Gus lies beside Jack as Jack goes to sleep. _Is this what close friends do?_ Jack wonders, and he wishes he had more experience with friendship before this to compare Gus’ behaviour with. He supposes their situation is a little different from most friends regardless, seeing as Gus doesn’t sleep anymore. After he vanished so abruptly they had made a silent agreement on staying together that night.

Jack is torn between the desire to lie as close to Gus as possible and the knowledge that the nightmares will linger that much longer if he wakes up feeling trapped. He compromises and lies with his back against the wall and one arm stretched to be touching Gus just to be certain. Gus closes his eyes, feigning sleep with his face relaxed and breathing easy in the light Jack still needs to have on. He thinks perhaps Gus prefers it too.

“Goodnight, Jack.”

Jack closes his eyes and reminds himself that the nightmares are always just nightmares. “Goodnight.”

When he wakes up, the nightmare clings to him all over and he’s too afraid to scream. He feels Gus’ hand on his shoulder and hears his comforting murmuring but it’s too similar to when he’d helped Jack into the boat back in Gruhuken and it’s too much, too close after his dream – he lashes out hard enough that his fist goes straight through Gus, who vanishes for one agonising second before popping back into existence.

Now both of them are sitting in the low light and panting. Jack’s collar sticks to him with sweat and he’s appalled with himself.

“Gus?” he asks after Gus stays looking a little unsteady, flickering around the edges like a poorly projected film. “Are you all right?”

Gus nods. “Yes. Grand. Sorry,” he shakes his head a little and becomes a little more solid. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where I went for a second there. It wasn’t anywhere at all. I didn’t know someone could do that.”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Jack says, breath still slowing. “It’s not your fault.”

“Jack, no, I shouldn’t have done that. I knew you needed space, I just can’t say I thought it through when you were so distressed.”

Jack doesn’t know what to say. He feels terrible, and tired, and sick. He never should have let Gus stay overnight.

“Jack, old man, have you considered… treatment?” Gus asks tentatively after a pause.

Jack pushes past the automatic rebuttal. _Mind your own fucking beeswax_ and _that’s all very well for you, I don’t have money for food at the moment_.

“D’you know, that’s exactly how your parents offered as well,” he says instead. “They suggested a place in Oxford they can get me into if I agree.”

“Would you?” Gus asks. “I know you like to go it alone but I hate to see you dealing with this all yourself.”

Privately, there’s a part of Jack doesn’t think there’s any going back to living without it. He’s different than he was before and that’s the end of it. And yet, the thought of being able to sleep even slightly easier sounds heavenly and Jack is too tired these days to object, the Balfours all quite convincing as they are. Besides, “I was already quite sure of saying yes,” Jack admits. “I’ll tell them tomorrow. After they sort my foot, I’ll decide a time.”

Gus’ smile is bright in the darkness and Jack is struck again by how purely handsome he is and how close they are together. But Gus had vanished for a moment there, really vanished to _somewhere else_ , because of Jack and now is far from the time to ask if Gus loves him back.

“What about you?” he asks instead.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Don’t you think perhaps you could use some ‘treatment’?”

Gus laughs, a quick bark that doesn’t sound like he found anything funny. “I don’t believe anyone knows how to treat a ghost, Jack.”

Jack feels foolish and wrong-footed. “But when you go back to Gruhuken, don’t you still feel it? Aren’t you frightened? Won’t you feel it every time?” Jack can’t bear to think of it. Having to go back to Gruhuken would end him and he feels scared to even think of Gus there.

“I was frightened,” Gus admits, forcing the word out like it’s forbidden. “Sometimes I still am, sometimes I scarcely feel like myself at all when I’m there or even when I’m alone. Like there’s nothing really inside me at all.” He shakes himself, like he wants to shake off the memories of feeling like that. “But this is the way that it is always going to be for me, Jack. Being frightened is a natural response. And I will always have to go back, at least for a while.”

Jack feels like a small child at the unfairness of it. He knows the prospect must be scarier for Gus than it is for him. He lies back down on the bed and Gus joins him a moment later. Jack just wants things to be fixed. What can he say? _I wish you hadn’t come for me, I wish you hadn’t drowned, I wish your body was anywhere else in the entire world so you wouldn’t have to return to that place, I wish you wouldn’t have to feel that kind of fear ever again let alone over and over and over._

“I know,” he says. “I just wish it wasn’t like this.”

Gus sighs and when he moves in closer Jack lets him, even though it’s cold. “Me, too.” His breathing is unsteady and Jack decides to throw caution to the wind: he wraps one arm around Gus so that his head rests on Jack’s chest. He wonders if it’s strange for Gus to be able to hear Jack’s heartbeat when he no longer has one of his own and hopes that it’s a comfort instead.

It takes a long while before Jack gets back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The frost bite specialist Jack gets sent to once they are back in London takes one look at his foot and shakes his head. “Mr Miller, I’ll be frank with you here. Amputation is the only option with this severity, considering what appears to be deep tissue death and the risk of the gangrene spreading.”

Algie, sitting beside Jack, somehow goes greener than he had when he’d first got a good look at Jack’s foot. “Amputation?” he squeaks.

“How far up my leg?” Jack asks.

“I’d have to consult with the surgeon but I’d say just above the ankle. It’ll need to be operated on urgently, you really should have come to me a lot sooner.”

Jack doesn’t mention that he wouldn’t have been able to come at all were it not for Gus’ parents’ money and connections.

Algie blusters loudly beside him. “Well, I should say that doesn’t offer much solace to the man! Can’t go back and get him here sooner. You’ll be setting him to rights soon, won’t you?”

“Within the next couple of days I should think,” the specialist says, scribbling away. “Don’t worry about it, you’re a fit young man and you’ll be back on your feet in no time. Well, I mean–”

Jack waves the apology off. He knew before he’d even visited his foot would have to go. Besides, it’s only a foot, after all. He’s been hobbling around painfully with it for quite some days now, perhaps it’ll be a relief to have it gone.

He doesn’t feel quite the same when the surgery is before him. It’s in the afternoon so he spends the morning preparing for it and he feels calm until very suddenly he doesn’t. There’s less chance of infection than there would have been a few years ago – and Jack knows it’s especially the case with a doctor chosen specifically by the Balfours and with their help he knows the prosthetic will be the best money can buy – but his stomach still clenches at the thought of all that could go wrong.

Gus, who has stayed with Jack every night since he returned and been hovering in Jack’s room all day offering fortifying encouragement, appears equally if not more nervous.

“Jack, you will do everything they tell you to, won’t you?”

“No, I’m going to get up while they’re still hacking away at my foot and come straight home.”

“I don’t know! You’re so stubborn, I don’t know what you’ll do half the time,” Gus says, looking as if he had a hat in his hands he’d wring it or like he could use a smoke.

Jack is both irritated by Gus adding to the anxiety and irritated by himself for feeling the smallest bit fond about it. He settles on squeezing the most solid bit of Gus’ shoulder. “I should think if I’m as stubborn as that I could out-stubborn all pain and risk of infection, don’t you?”

“Well I suppose if anyone could,” Gus allows, some of the tension leaving his expression like it’s a conscious effort.

“Then there’s no need for this fretting,” Jack says with more confidence than he feels. “You can even visit me in the hospital if it would settle your nerves a little.”

“And have you be seen talking to yourself?”

Jack hadn’t considered that. He never really forgets that Gus is dead – the nightmares and the constant cold in his presence makes sure of that – but he does forget that he’s the only one aware Gus is there at all. “Well,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue.

“I’ll be waiting right here for when they discharge you,” Gus says resolutely, gesturing to Jack’s room and the flat at large. It’s not Jack’s old one in Tooting, instead one owned by Gus’ parents that’s maintained and fragrant and warm. They had pushed on him claiming that they hadn’t anyone renting there at the moment and no, really, he could pay them at a later date. He feels like a hotel guest, nervous to move anything out of place.

“I’d like that.” The thought of being able to come home to Gus is a warm one. Jack holds onto it tight for a moment. “I forgot to say, I asked Algie to get me all the books he could on, uh. ‘Unseen forces’.”

“What did he say?”

“Got me probably every book he could get his hands on in London, it seems,” Jack admits, remembering the mix of unexpected affection and guilt for exploiting Algie’s own guilt when Algie had arrived at the flat with three boxes of books. He hadn’t stuck around to discuss them or given any suggestion he connected their topic with their time in Gruhuken, for which Jack was grateful.

“Poor man likely did, or at least got someone else to do it for him. Reading for the hospital?”

“No. I thought perhaps we could look at them together when I’m back. Combine what I remember of physics and your biology, start really trying to get some facts on your… ghosthood.” Jack winces a little at the last word, looking away from Gus and embarrassed by his attempts at tactfulness. ‘Ghosthood?’ It’s not even a real word.

Gus laughs, “Jack,” and he sounds so fond that Jack feels himself flushing with pride.

“What?”

When he looks up, Gus’ eyes are bright with banked delight. “’Ghosthood’?”

Jack shrugs, feeling himself flush deeper. Gus really is the most handsome man he’s ever seen.

“I should think I would like that very much,” Gus says when Jack doesn’t speak, smile almost sheepish at the earnestness in his voice.

“OK,” says Jack, buzzing slightly with his suggestion being so well met. “Grand. Good show.”

Gus huffs at the teasing, taking his turn to flush, and then he’s leaning in and Jack only understands a split second before it’s happening and Gus’ lips are on his.

Jack hasn’t kissed very many people at all, no one at all since UCL and never another man. Certainly never the ghost of another man. He doesn’t know what he expected. It’s cold and semi-corporeal because Gus is always cold and semi-corporeal, and it’s a little awkward at first because Jack was caught off guard and he doesn’t think either of them are experienced, and it’s easily the best kiss Jack has ever had because it’s Gus.

His legs almost feel weak with it – _although perhaps that’s the foot_ , some distant part of him wonders – and when they pull apart Gus looks as unravelled as Jack feels. His hand is on Jack’s cheek, slightly sunk into it with his ghostliness and Jack wants to lean his entire body into it until there’s a knock at the door and Gus’ hand drops.

Algie pokes his head in and boggles at Gus for a moment before he blinks and deflates, looking a little queasy with it. Gus has gone very still.

“All right there?” Jack asks Algie when he doesn’t speak.

“Oh! Yes. Just fine, I just thought I saw– but nonsense,” he gains some of his usual pomp and continues, “Here to remind you to keep your chin up and we’re to leave for the hospital in just a minute.”

 “I’ll be there.”

Algie looks back to where Gus is still standing but clearly can’t see him anymore, staring hard for a moment but shutting the door behind him the next.

“Christ,” says Gus. “He saw me. Did you see? He saw me.”

“I saw.”

“I need to be visible to him again and talk to him. How do you think it happened now? I suppose I am feeling quite strong,” Gus looks around the room slightly lost, like Jack’s bare, impersonal walls will tell him what to do next. Then he settles on Jack and goes pink again. “Oh. Was that all right? Doing that?”

Jack doesn’t think he can put into words how it was so much more than all right. “Definitely,” he says.

Gus looks pleased. “You need to go,” he reminds Jack, which is good because Jack is sure he otherwise might have missed his appointment entirely, standing and smiling dazedly at Gus for hours.

“We can talk about this later?” he asks. When Gus nods, expression tentatively wondrous like he can’t believe there’s really something to talk about, Jack moves away to pick up his things. “Talk with Algie when he gets back.”

“I will do.”

Jack limps to the door, focusing on his pain and frustration with his foot so he can ignore the rising fear now the surgery is really here.

“Wait,” says Gus when Jack gets to the door. He takes Jack’s hand in both of his and squeezes hard. “Good luck,” he says and kisses Jack again, just quickly before Jack has to go.

 

* * *

 

Algie visits once Jack is settled in bed post-surgery and looks splotchy, both grey and red-eyed and like he’s just lost a crushing weight from his shoulders. He manages the pleasantries of visiting someone recovering in hospital before, voice low and unsteady: “Jack, old chap. This is really–? It’s really him?”

Jack nods, both too tired and in too much pain to be detailed, and Algie draws in a shaky breath.

“Well, that’s. That’s. Well,” Algie eloquently manages before he needs to sit down hard in Jack’s visitor chair.

 

* * *

 

Dear Jack,

I can hold a pen! Algie has been practicing with me. Still rather exhausting to write at length, still miss researching ghosthood aloud with you – much easier. Need to return to Gruhuken soon. Hope Oxford treating you well, will see you soon.

Yours,

Gus

 

Dear Gus,

Terrible to make me appear so pleased over a letter with the return address of Algernon Carlisle! Oxford is pleasant though I have seen little of it; it’s thankfully far from the sea, which you know I find calming, although I fear all of England is too cold for me. I’m not treated unkindly and my ankle stays healing well. Please stay safe and let me know when you return ASAP. I miss you terribly, our time with our books especially.

Yours,

Jack

 

Algie,

Please keep an eye on Gus when he returns from Gruhuken.

Jack

 

Jack,

Of course, old chap.

Algie

 

Jack,

Gus returned. A little shaken but bearing up well. Says he got upset and vanished for a while, went somewhere beyond Gruhuken. All back now. No need to worry, he asked me to let you know that especially. Feel better.

Algie

 

Dear Gus,

Algie arranged for us to have a telephone call. He has the details. Please talk to me, you don’t need to tell me what happened to make you upset.

Yours,

Jack

 

“I don’t know where I go sometimes, Jack. It’s nowhere. Does that make me real?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“What if I’m not? What if I’ve lost some part of myself by being like this? Like I’m simply holding on to what I thought I was like? … Jack? Are you still there?”

A sniff. “Yes, I’m still here. Sorry.”

“Oh, hell. Please don’t be upset, Jack. I’m sorry. I’m all in a funk, you don’t need to hear this.”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not, I should go.”

“No, stay. I can’t remember how long we have, tell me something nice while you’re here.”

“I’ll read to you. I still have our last bit bookmarked somewhere. Ah, here we are. Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

 

Dear Jack,

Writing is almost simple now, finally I can write my fill! I stayed with Algie for a little while but currently I’m travelling though he’s promised not to peek at our letters so you can keep sending them there. As you expected, testing how far I can travel has proved quite difficult and quite tiring and I find my limits far too quickly but I promise I will still be able to visit you. I look forward to it immensely. Algie says you’ve also received a letter about Isaak but no need to worry – it is just news on his quarantine status so far as we can tell. I read the most interesting article on deer behaviour and have enclosed it for you though God knows you may have read it already, the pace at which you’re getting into this biology business. Let me know what you think.

Yours,

Gus

 

Dear Gus,

 I wish you could have stayed longer, if only I did not have things to be doing and you have travelling. Though I suppose this place is also not the most relaxing to stay in, especially when us talking would likely only get me a longer stay here. I forgot to ask while you were here but would it be possible for the letter about Isaak to be forwarded to here? It’s silly, but I should feel a lot better about him if I could stay in the know about his wellbeing. Did you hear about the museum exhibition they’ll be opening at Pitt Rivers soon? It would be great fun to go. One month to go.

Yours,

Jack

 

Dear Gus,

I know it’s bad form to send another letter before receiving a reply but your parents have been in contact with me. They suggested a job placement, for after I’ve finished with this, and I’d like to hear what you think of it. Feeling better, docs say I’m doing well.

Yours,

Jack

 

* * *

 

“You simply must take the offer, Jack,” Gus states, like there’s no alternative. “It’s the job of a lifetime, you would love it in Jamaica.”

It’s the third time he’s brought it up since Jack has been discharged from the sanatorium in Oxford. Jack is choosing to stay in Oxford for now, using some of the money he received from the Royal Geographical Society for his injuries to rent a small ground floor room while his foot still rehabilitates. Gus has had to return to Gruhuken once for a week since Jack was discharged but he’s still found time to pester Jack about the job offer.

To work for the botanical research station does sound like a bit of a dream to Jack, especially since physics is associated with too many bad memories for him to truly enjoy it any more. Biology is associated with Gus, both Gus before and now, and that’s good.

Jack isn’t going to take the job.

“I can’t, it’s too far,” he says as he has the last three discussions; one via letter, one in bed just before he went to sleep and the other while Algie sat awkwardly at the table pretending not to listen to them bicker in the kitchen.

Today they’re walking slowly through the botanical gardens, the beginnings of spring all around them. Usually Gus would be in his element, pointing out obscure plants and discussing them at such length and depth and delighting when Jack doesn’t get left behind, but perhaps Jack should have known it would only remind him of the placement offer.

“Too far for who, Jack?” Gus asks snappily but his mouth is turned down at the corners like he’s unhappy.

“For me,” Jack replies. “I like it here and Isaak is only just getting out of quarantine, I don’t want to move him yet.”

“You hate it here and Isaak would adapt.”

“I do not hate it here,” Jack retorts, his tone getting snappy too. “I like Oxford, it’s far from the sea and it’s small enough and old and this garden is beautiful.”

Jack doesn’t mention how it’s still too cold, that going outside when he first arrived still made his body lock with fear for the first few moments and he’s already dreading winter returning. That when he walks along the side streets he’s chest feels tight with their narrowness and business. He doesn’t mention that sometimes even with land all around it’s still just too _close,_ that he feels like he needs to put more and more miles between him and Gruhuken lest he need to wash it off of him endlessly. Stop the past poking through. His hands shake near constantly and his chest feels tight and heavy.

The look Gus gives him tells him he doesn’t need to say any of these things for Gus to know them.

“Jack, I could still visit you sometimes,” Gus says and Jack needs to sit down, too tired to discuss this again while walking. He picks the closest bench, hidden away from other visitors so he can talk with Gus freely.

“I don’t want you to visit me sometimes.”

Gus flinches back from where they’d been sitting side by side. “Oh. Well, I don’t have to visit of course. Would letters be acceptable? Or the wireless?”

“God, no, Gus,” Jack says quickly, grabbing Gus’ hand before he moves away farther. He feels almost embarrassed to say the truth even though Gus needs to hear it. “I mean I want you to be there always and we both know that can’t happen in Jamaica. It’s too far for you.”

“I could practice more,” Gus suggests without much hope.

“That would take years, it was already a strain for you to be in London. Isn’t it easier for you here?”

“Oxford is hardly the Arctic,” Gus says. “You know everywhere that isn’t Gruhuken is harder for me.”

“You managed when you first came to me,” Jack points out, hoping to move away from discussing the placement and back onto their research into ghosts.

Gus leans back against the bench with a sigh. “You were hardly far, Jack. You were still on the boat to Longyearbyen. Regardless, I’ve been practicing while you were away. I can travel to Greece for at least a week without having been back to Gruhuken in two weeks.” Gus tone was factual, like he was reading the results of an experiment.

No doubt he had written his findings up as such, Jack thought, and had to bite back a smile even as his chest ached at the thought of, at that rate, seeing Gus for only a few days a year.

“It’s too far,” Jack repeats.

“What about the money? A solid job in this state of things isn’t something to sniff at,” Gus says, changing tact.

“I’ll find a job here,” Jack counters although he’s had little success so far and the thought of tying himself here with a job makes him feel a little sick. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

Gus’ grip on Jack’s hand tightens and he looks out into the plants as he speaks, “Perhaps it’s for the best, Jack. Holding you back like this when there’s a perfect job on a plate for you, somewhere you’d be so much happier – it makes me feel terribly.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Be honest,” Gus says, now making sure he has Jack’s gaze directly. “Imagine if you didn’t have to take me or– _us_ into account. Do you want the placement in Jamaica?”

Jack imagined it. Not an alternative where Gus wasn’t here at all, that was far too awful to bear, but an alternative where Gus wasn’t tied forever to Gruhuken and would be able to travel freely with Jack. They both could have been offered placements, both work in the Castleton botanical gardens and Gus would have glowed in the sun and the learning of it all and they could have shared a house with Isaak to keep them company. Listening to the radio, reading their books, ignoring the war on the horizon. It brings a lump to Jack’s throat, to have Gus and know if things had been just a little different they could have had so much more.

And for himself. To be far, far away from Gruhuken. To be free from the cold that makes him shake and his leg ache, from the grimy grey of English cities that he’s always hated, to be somewhere that was bright and warm and where he could find work that actually engaged him. The thought is so soothing it’s like sinking into a warm bath, if the idea of submerging himself in water didn’t still make his heart jump into his throat with fear. 

“Yes,” he says finally. He can’t say it loudly, his voice hoarse and almost a whisper. “I want to take the placement.”

It feels like breathing deeply for the first time in weeks to admit it. He wants to go, even if that means being without Gus sometimes.

“Then take it,” Gus says.

“What about you?”

Gus looks like thinking about it pains him but he puts on a brave face. “I’ll be all right. I’ll still be able to be here, I’ll have Algie and hopefully my sister. I’ll do studies here, write under a pen name, travel. Usually when I visit Gruhuken I’m alone and it’s quite fine really.”

“Won’t you be lonely?”

Gus shrugs. “I imagine I will a bit. But you understand, I wasn’t that happy before all this. Trapped in a lifestyle that I couldn’t reconcile with myself, all those responsibilities and people watching… It’s quite freeing now, to be this way, for all the horrors that come with it.”

The word ‘horrors’ echoes in Jack’s mind and he feels awful with it as ever. His throat feels thick and he wishes they’d had this talk in private so he could wrap himself round Gus, offer him some real comfort and have comfort in return. As it is, he leans against Gus’ side and wishes he still had a scent to breathe in, something to stick with Jack when they would be parted.

“And me?” Jack asks after a pause.

Gus puts an arm around Jack, even in public as they are. “I’ll visit you as much as I can. Every day that I can. I’ll practice, and I’ll rest, and I think perhaps someday I could visit for weeks at a time.”

Weeks out of a whole year of weeks doesn’t sound like very much at all to Jack.

“I’ll miss you,” he says honestly. “I don’t think I can even fathom yet how much I’ll miss you.”

“Me, neither,” says Gus. “But I’m so frightfully glad to have the opportunity to miss you at all.”

Jack can’t argue with that.

They stay a while longer in the gardens, Gus explaining some of the plants and both happily surprised when Jack not only keeps up but can offer his own knowledge, and then smaller and more inconsequential chat.

That night, they stay close together while Jack eats and the evening passes with a walk for Isaak and Jack gets ready for bed.  When Gus says he loves him just before Jack drops off to sleep, Jack looks at him in the low light that he still needs. Gus is semi-transparent in it but still striking and he’s looking at Jack like he’s just as beautiful, even as some hesitance joins his expression the longer Jack stays quiet. Jack still feels unsure about the job, knows it will be harder than he imagines to be alone in Jamaica and Gus so far away, but it seems like the easiest thing in the world to pull Gus closer and tell him he loves him back.

In the morning, Jack writes a letter to Gus’ parents letting them know he’d like to take them up on their offer.

 

* * *

 

The man that helps Jack move in when he arrives in Castleton tells him the silk-cotton tree beside the house is far too close for tradition. He explains it’s a duppy tree and that it will attract ghosts to the house. Jack thinks of Gruhuken for a moment, the waterlogged dead tread coming closer and the blood-stained bear pole, before Isaak runs excitedly up to the tree and runs around the base, barking happily. Jack smiles, thinks of Gus perhaps being able to visit him with less strain because of this tree, and takes it as a sign. Jamaica was a good choice.

He tells the man that he has no trouble with ghosts.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Jack wonders if Gus is really Gus at all. It’s not a thought he’ll ever voice, especially not to Gus who already fears it so deeply. Gus is certainly Gus, in turns earnest and fumbling and stubborn and wonderful and he still loves biology and to discuss new discoveries about his ghosthood and to play with Isaak and read his books.

He still loves Jack, and Algie is still his dearest friend for some unfathomable reason. And he grows and develops his mind even as his body remains ever the same. He manages to visit Jack for roughly a fortnight every year around the anniversary of his death when he’s strongest, after spending two months alone in Gruhuken. In those weeks, they pack everything they can’t fit into letters and wireless and some days the thought of that annual visit on the horizon is all that keeps Jack going.

But sometimes the thought oozes into his mind unbidden and Jack wonders, sickened by himself with it, if this Gus is real. If he isn’t something Jack forced into being somehow by sheer grief, or if he isn’t just a shadowy copy of Augustus Balfour, a man that once was. Almost alone in the cold expanse of Gruhuken, Jack can’t imagine how Gus can stand it for all those months until he can make his way back home, how he can push the same thoughts away and keep a grip on anything being real at all.

But he supposes in the end, it doesn’t matter whether the Gus that is is the same as the Gus that was. Neither of them are the same as they were before Gruhuken, neither of them the eager explorers into the unknown that listened to the ice and watched the guillemots on the cliffs.

Jack is glad for every wireless and every letter, for every time that he looks out to the green mountains and the winding road to Castleton while he waits and waits and then: Gus’ voice fond in the hallway, Isaak bounding to greet him even in his age, something in Jack’s chest easing for at least a little while.

They’ll go the beach as they do every year. Even as Jack’s heart beats in his throat with fear, even as Gus’ hand is cold in his and his cheek forever icy and unchanging under Jack’s lips, as they stand and look out at the sea together Jack always takes a moment to be fiercely thankful.


End file.
